I should have helped her. When I saw that girl being accosted by two men that night, I should have helped her.

A friend of mine once laughed after taking a sip of this very coffee. The café was new, the downtown shopping mall it was in, too, was new, and she had that bubbly, spring-like sort of laugh that reminded me of smart women wrapped in snazzy color schemes and of modern art museum postcards. That's who she was to me. But my friend was an old one.

The car dealership a few ways down the road was replaced by a shoe store. The local flower store that sold the sweetest begonias you ever saw was taken over by storage units in an empty lot. The dentistry that always had a wait list two months long was transformed into a costly single-family home. She told me these things on the way to the shopping mall, where there was a large fountain, outdoor seats and benches under the shade, and shops for your pets, camping needs, golf, and wedding planning, floor to wall pristine and cool like a pearl, but she bemoaned it all. She was an old one.

In our wooden chairs, talking about work and life and bullshit like that, she said she missed the way our town used to be. I nodded empathically, emptily. I thought the shoe store had always been there.

"My store's coffee is better," she said after laughing, and pulled out a tiny notebook out of her pocket to write something down, scorching out competitors. She said it tasted like water.

I didn't help that girl and I wasn't even scared. I was just lazy and I was spent, and I was late. I was going to miss my train and if I missed it I would have to wait an extra ten minutes and then—and then—and then what?

It tasted exactly like water.

More water.

I didn't help her because we were running late. In a land of concrete the summer heat was dizzying, and I was tired after a night out drinking. It was a Friday; I was more than allowed. These streets just had a way of swallowing you up. I saw two men with signs in their hands plant themselves in front of her. They were advertising one of the bars down the street. It was the entertainment district, the splendor of the capital laid bare in the dark.

These things happen. They were telling her about their great Guinness drinks and that their side dishes were 50 percent off. They were telling her the first hour spent there was free of charge for female clientele. They were telling her that the blonde highlights decorating her hair were pretty. And I'm afraid she didn't have it in her to remember she could slide to the side and walk away, because she just stood there and I watched as whatever resolve she ever had to carry her through the night curled into a ball and rolled on the wretched ground.

Syrup. Gum syrup.

These things happen. They happen all the time. They were just doing their job, their very annoying job, and hundreds of people made it out alright by silencing them with quick, decisive strides. It's not that big of a deal, and nothing bad was going to come of it. Why, I knew it. I knew she was alright. That's why I turned to my friend and told her it was alright. She'll be fine. And my friend might have looked at me like she had something to say but had had too many shots to word it eloquently enough, and I might have known then that it was a good thing we were both too worn out to hash it out because I, for one, knew the words liquor held beneath her tongue. I hate your city, it went. So in the end it was a good thing to be drunk and on the edge of the day.

Sugar. This is sweet water now.

Her bakery was one half of a family home where she lived with her elderly parents. It lay in a residential area uptown, where the traffic was ever low and there were more square miles for parks and agricultural fields than density of people. Many a place laid out their fruits, vegetables, plants or wares on the front porch, often no one in sight, just a money box, a sign explaining the prices, and the relish of the most desolate part of town. I mean, I was the first one who said—

Lastly, milk. It doesn't help an inch.

I once told her I would help her make it in the industry, that I would buy every stock if no one else would. She laughed like a pixie playing in a brook, and said that so long as I was pleased with her cooking that would be enough. Four years in, my first visit in six months, she looked at me not with the eyes of someone who was understood, but with eyes that seemed to say that she—she understands. She gets it.

I should have said—I should have done—man, I should have said—

I don't even fucking like coffee.